Archive

Yep, I know we’re only a day removed from Sunday, but there are a couple of things on the radar that deserve addressing today, a beautiful Monday on which I don’t have to work.

Like . . .

Missing the mark: Nine days left, $22 million and change to go. So it doesn’t look like the Ubuntu Edge campaign will make its goal next week, but Mark Shuttleworth is not deterred, claiming victory in a wide assortment of articles that are easily available across the tech news realm. Yet more importantly, and probably more telling, is a commentary by Fabian Scherschel — a European journalist/magazine editor who can be heard weekly on Linux Outlaws — which speaks to the issue so well, it is something I wish I had written. Take a few minutes to read Fab’s analysis — I’ll wait.

But after you’re done with Fab’s article . . . .

The polls are open: Vote early and often — Foss Force is into its second round of polling for their Best Personal Linux or FOSS Blog Poll, and round two ends Monday, August 19. Thankfully, I made the first round, and my doppelganger on the Debian/CrunchBang side, Larry the CrunchBang Guy, also made it to the 19 candidates on the list.

The list of blogs that made the 19 finalists are outstanding and I’m honored to be in this group. To say the least, I could easily vote for many of these over my own with a clear conscience — Benjamin Kerensa’s blog or Matthew Garrett’s blog for starters — and my good friend Ken Starks’ Blog of Helios has been a fantastic read for years. My suggestion is to read ’em all before you vote.

Anyway, vote for two in this round. The next round — the finals — are going to be a one-vote affair starting next Monday.

A huge debt of gratitude is owed to FOSS Force for hosting this poll on behalf of those of us who blog for the love of FOSS and blogging, as opposed to picking up a paycheck for it (though, truth be told, many — me included, especially me — would gladly do it for a check). The poll is giving all of us on the ballot a huge amount of exposure, and I think I speak for all of the candidates when I say, “thank you!”

Oh, before I forget: This blog mentioned Ubuntu Edge and, of course, it’s time for the windup and the pitch.

Want to give some money to projects that really make a difference? Give instead to:

Reglue (especially Reglue, which is creating a new generation of FOSS users as you read this sentence)

Partimus (bringing Linux boxes to classrooms in the San Francisco Bay Area, or any other project like it)

This blog, and all other blogs by Larry the Free Software Guy, Larry the CrunchBang Guy and Larry Cafiero, are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND license. In short, this license allows others to download this work and share it with others as long as they credit me as the author, but others can’t change it in any way or use it commercially.

(Larry Cafiero is one of the founders of the Lindependence Project and develops business software at Redwood Digital Research, a consultancy that provides FOSS solutions in the small business and home office environment.)

It’s getting late in the game and the team you’re rooting for is down by a significant margin. As a San Francisco Giants fan, this season I know that feeling all too well. With a week and a half left in Canonical’s Indiegogo campaign, we’re now starting to see posts on social media like this one on Google+ that starts out: “For the sake of the linux community, and the future of open source hardware projects, please help Ubuntu Edge become real.”

With 11 days left and with the total so far at the mid-$9 million level, it appears it’s going to take either a “Hail Mary” pass by someone with mile-deep pockets or a room full of Michael Bloombergs with cash-filled briefcases to make the $32 million goal originally sought by Canonical. Still, $9 million plus — or whatever Canonical ends up with after the deadline — is nothing to sneeze at, and we trust that it will be put to good use when it comes to developing Ubuntu Edge.

[Edit: I know the Indiegogo campaign is set up so that if Canonical doesn’t make the goal, then they don’t get the money. I would like to think, however, that if people are that serious about putting up money and/or ordering hardware, they should be able to do so and that Canonical should take this into account going forward.]

By a number of metrics, though, the Ubuntu Edge campaign is a short-term success by a wide margin, no matter what the final tally show 11 days from now.

But long-term success? Let’s see how — or even if — Canonical delivers on Ubuntu Edge.

Meanwhile, back at Google+ . . . Aaron Seigo, in his normally straightforward and reasonable manner borne of an eloquence and wisdom that make him one of the true leaders of FOSS, weighs in with some comments in this thread.

Since he says this far better than I would, I’ll let Aaron drive here. He says in his first comment:

“(… someone mentioned me, so here I come :)

“Yes, open hardware is very hard; just getting properly open software on consumer grade electronics that you can manufacturer your own devices with is not easy. We’re finally there with the Vivaldi tablet we’ve been working on for a year now; we’re working out the last Q/A issues on the factory lines (so many parts that have to go together just perfectly), but I can definitely tell you that it is not easy.

“Due to this, I respect that Canonical has decided to take on such a project.

“The biggest concern I have is exactly what the +Mehdi Zakaria Benadel alludes to in his original post:

“Some people have become convinced that the Edge is critical to the future of open hardware, and so if the funding fails to materialize they may take this is a signal that Free software and open consumer electronics just aren’t meant to be.

“Thankfully, that is not the case. Canonical is not all of Linux or Free software; Ubuntu is not all of Linux or Free software. Even if Canonical does not succeed in this, others will persist on and we will succeed.

“If the Edge succeeds then we can rejoice together. At this point that looks unlikely, however. If it does not succeed then we simply need to move on and not let one failure by one company convince us that the sky has fallen in.

“Companies and projects fail all the time, that’s just how it is. Fortunately enough also succeed to keep progress moving. This is true not only in Free software, but all areas of effort in this world.

“This is also why it is so important that we do not somehow become deluded into thinking that the future of Free software rests on the shoulder of Canonical or Ubuntu. We need to put our eggs in multiple baskets and build no single points of failure in our community, or in our minds.

“Regardless of how this pans out, everyone will learn a lot from it.﻿”

Exactly, Aaron.

Eleven days from now, the Indiegogo campaign will wrap up and the final tally will be announced 12 days hence. Chances are that it will not be $32 million. Regardless of how much is collected, it will be, at best, something that Canonical can build on and, again, the wider FOSS world surely shares the hope that it is something on which Canonical follows through.

What it won’t be is the beginning of the end for the FOSS paradigm, which will continue to thrive regardless of what happens with Ubuntu Edge.

So cue up the musical “Annie” and enjoy your Sunday.

Oh, before I forget: This blog mentioned Ubuntu Edge and, of course, it’s time for the windup and the pitch.

Want to give some money to projects that really make a difference? Give instead to:

Reglue (especially Reglue, which is creating a new generation of FOSS users as you read this sentence)

Partimus (bringing Linux boxes to classrooms in the San Francisco Bay Area, or any other project like it)

[Blogger’s Note: FOSS Force, which provides news and commentary on all things Free/Open Source, currently has a poll running to rank the Best Personal Linux or FOSS Blog, in which they include Larry the Free Software Guy. All the blogs are excellent, but I shamelessly admit that this is an appeal to vote for me. So if you like this blog, use one of your two first-round votes — yes, you have two votes to vote for two blogs (not two of the same one) — to vote for Larry the Free Software Guy. If you don’t like this blog, cast your votes for two of the others: I’d vote for Ken Starks’ Blog of Helios or write in Jim Eriksen’s Jim’s 2011 blog at http://jims2011.blogspot.com (write-ins must be accompanied by the URL). And whomever you choose in the privacy of the digital voting booth, thank you for voting!]

This blog, and all other blogs by Larry the Free Software Guy, Larry the CrunchBang Guy and Larry Cafiero, are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND license. In short, this license allows others to download this work and share it with others as long as they credit me as the author, but others can’t change it in any way or use it commercially.

(Larry Cafiero is one of the founders of the Lindependence Project and develops business software at Redwood Digital Research, a consultancy that provides FOSS solutions in the small business and home office environment.)

And that’s after Mark Shuttleworth kicked in $1,000 to the Reglue campaign (a sincere thank you for that one, Mark; sincerely and seriously — no snark).

If you do the math, $32,000 is 0.1 percent — one-tenth of one percent — of $32 million. But I hate fractions and decimal points, so I’m going to round up the figure to, oh, 10 percent by throwing out the decimal point and swapping the digits instead.

With this 10 percent factor, I hereby throw down the gauntlet to each and every Ubuntu Edge contributor.

Here’s the challenge: You bought an Ubuntu Edge phone for $600 or $800 already? Great. If you can afford to spend that much on a phone, you can kick in 10 percent of that to the Reglue Indiegogo campaign to help underprivileged kids around Austin, Texas, get Linux boxes, as well as providing the upkeep and day-to-day operations of nine computer learning labs in and around Austin.

You didn’t buy a phone, but you believe in Canonical’s project enough to place some money down? Fantastic. Now, how about about donating 10 percent of what you gave to them to a project that not only provides the aforementioned Linux boxes and computer labs, but also provides Internet connectivity to the most needy of their clients?

That’s all I’m asking, Ubunteros: 10 percent of what you gave to Ubuntu Edge.

[This is not to say that those who didn’t donate to Ubuntu Edge are exempt. If you are a good Fosstafarian and want to see the good that Reglue does succeed, by all means donate.]

Bonus: Here’s your chance to make me eat proverbial crow, Ubuntu fans. I’ll sit in the digital sideshow dunk tank and let you throw baseballs to put me in the water. If you donated to BOTH Ubuntu Edge and Reglue — your Reglue donation must be at least 10 percent of your Ubuntu Edge donation — you have accepted the challenge, so post a comment to this blog with your real name and the amount of your donations to each. Upon my confirmation of both donations, I will comment back with a statement and/or observation to each and every comment about what Ubuntu is/has been doing right and/or something positive about Ubuntu.

Double bonus: Want to see me eat my words for an entire month? How’s this? If Reglue makes its goal of $32,000 — with or without the help of Ubuntu users and fans — I’ll write a month of Sundays of Ubuntu blog posts extolling the glory that is the adjective-and-the-animal-with-the-same-letter. That’s a month of Larry the Free Software Guy blogs, which run on Sundays, accenting the greatness that is Ubuntu. The top four Ubuntu Edge/Reglue donors (top Ubuntu Edge donors to Reglue, that is) each get to pick one of the four topics for four consecutive Sunday LtFSG blog items singing the glowing praises of Canonical, Ubuntu or both.

[Looking at the proverbial scoreboard, the top donor in this category so far would be Mark Shuttleworth. How about it, Mark? Think you can rally your troops?]

There you go, folks. You have a few weeks left. Feeling up to the task?

=====

Oops, I did it again: Every time I mention Ubuntu Edge in a blog post, I am going to mention this. I still strongly advocate for folks to donate to the following groups instead of giving millions to Canonical. Give instead to:

This blog, and all other blogs by Larry the Free Software Guy, Larry the CrunchBang Guy and Larry Cafiero, are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND license. In short, this license allows others to download this work and share it with others as long as they credit me as the author, but others can’t change it in any way or use it commercially.

(Larry Cafiero is one of the founders of the Lindependence Project and develops business software at Redwood Digital Research, a consultancy that provides FOSS solutions in the small business and home office environment.)

Before we get underway today, it bears mentioning in the face of the Ubuntu Forums cracking — down for seven days now, guys . . . it’s that big a problem? — that we know who has root, or at least Mark Shuttleworth said so when he wrote, “Don’t trust us? Erm, we have root. You do trust us with your data already” in his blog item here from September of last year.

So, can we get a show of hands? Still trust him with your data?

OK, perhaps that was hasty, and I take it back. I know it must really suck to be rich; to have the one-percenter problems that I could not begin to imagine. I understand the wealthy don’t have the same concerns as those of us who have too much month at the end of the money while splitting hairs between paying utility bills and buying enough ramen for the rest of the week.

But mac-and-Velveeta problems pale in comparison to what Mark Shuttleworth has had to go through recently. Apparently, Mark has had to lawyer up and sue the South African government to have South Africa’s exchange control system declared unconstitutional, as well as having the High Court in Pretoria set aside a levy of over 250 million rand he had to pay to get some of his assets out of the country in 2009, and order the SA Reserve Bank to return the money.

According to the iafrica.com article linked above, “[Shuttleworth] had assets worth over R4.27 billion in South Africa when he emigrated, but transferred the assets out of the country in 2008 and 2009, each time paying a 10 percent levy.”

Ouch. Ten percent of your fortune stays behind when you leave your country for a tax haven like the Isle of Man? That’s truly not right, and on principle I would certainly agree that Shuttleworth deserves his money. No lie and no sarcasm: Mark definitely did the right thing in filing suit.

That was in April. The Durban reported on July 19 that the High Court in Pretoria has struck down Shuttleworth’s case. While The Durban reports the court “on Thursday [July 18] dismissed Shuttleworth’s application to strike down the whole of Section 9 of the Currency and Exchange Act and all of the Exchange Control Regulations as unconstitutional,” they did find parts of it unconstitutional, but most importantly it appears that the 250 million rand is lost for good to the South African government.

That certainly must have put a damper on the Ubuntu Edge Indegogo campaign rollout on the Monday following the ruling. As an aside, this is what 250 million rand looks like in U.S. dollars: At roughly 0.102 dollars to the rand, it comes out to roughly $25.6 million, just $6.4 million short of the $32 million that Ubuntu Edge is seeking in their campaign ending on Aug. 21.

Pity, since if the South African court had ruled in Shuttleworth’s favor and this windfall was returned to him, imagine how far along the Ubuntu Edge Indiegogo campaign would be if he donated some, most or all of it.

Sorry about losing the suit, Mark — you truly got hosed. And seriously, good luck with the campaign.

===

But, hey, I said “Ubuntu Edge” again: Every time I blog and Ubuntu Edge is mentioned, I am going to repeat the following from a previous blog. I still strongly advocate for folks to donate to the following groups instead of giving millions to a company like Canonical which doesn’t care much about anything other than itself. Give instead to:

Reglue (especially Reglue, which is creating a new generation of FOSS users as you read this sentence)

Partimus (bringing Linux boxes running Ubuntu to classrooms in the San Francisco Bay Area, or any other project like it)

This blog, and all other blogs by Larry the Free Software Guy, Larry the CrunchBang Guy and Larry Cafiero, are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND license. In short, this license allows others to download this work and share it with others as long as they credit me as the author, but others can’t change it in any way or use it commercially.

(Larry Cafiero is one of the founders of the Lindependence Project and develops business software at Redwood Digital Research, a consultancy that provides FOSS solutions in the small business and home office environment.)

Just sayin’, Ian: No, it’s not you, and you nailed it right on the proverbial head.

See you all tomorrow on Blog Sunday.

One more thing: Every time I blog about Ubuntu Unity, I am going to mention this. I still strongly advocate for folks to donate to the following groups instead of giving millions to a company like Canonical which doesn’t care much about anything other than itself. Give instead to:

Reglue (especially Reglue, which is creating a new generation of FOSS users as you read this sentence)

Partimus (bringing Linux boxes to classrooms in the San Francisco Bay Area, or any other project like it)

This blog, and all other blogs by Larry the Free Software Guy, Larry the CrunchBang Guy and Larry Cafiero, are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND license. In short, this license allows others to download this work and share it with others as long as they credit me as the author, but others can’t change it in any way or use it commercially.

(Larry Cafiero is one of the founders of the Lindependence Project and develops business software at Redwood Digital Research, a consultancy that provides FOSS solutions in the small business and home office environment.)

After a losing a long bout with insomnia early Thursday morning, I started to looking at different Internet memes and matched them with — how can I put this mildly? — a current annoyance in the FOSS world known as the Indiegogo campaign for Ubuntu Edge.

You can all blame Mark Terranova, who on Wednesday posted this on Facebook:

Of course, that’s not really Michael Myers in the photo, but the guy’s whose face graces that photo does begin with an M. So it got me thinking: There are a lot of different, popular memes that would apply to the Ubuntu Edge situation. Like:

Jimmy McMillan. You can’t go wrong with Jimmy McMillan when something — like, oh I don’t know, an amount like $32 million — is too damn high. Then there were others, like the History Channel’s “Ancient Aliens” guy:

A nod to Tolkein and “Lord of the Rings” (OK, a nod to Peter Jackson and his film, anyway):

Of course, no meme collection would be complete without an “angry Picard,” though those who know TNG will tell you that he’s actually reciting a Shakespearean sonnet:

I didn’t make this next one. Actually, my good friend Juan Rodriguez — who himself is one of the most interesting men in the world (and a damn good programmer to boot) — posted this on Facebook, and “The Most Interesting Man in the World” weighs in:

Memed out yet? One more — and you all know this one would appear sooner or later:

Yep, well, I have a cup of coffee and an imgflip.com account. There’s a lot more where these came from.

Last, but by no means least, I still advocate for folks to donate to the following groups instead of giving millions to a company which doesn’t care much about anything other than itself. Give instead to:

Reglue (especially Reglue, which is creating a new generation of FOSS users as you read this sentence)

Partimus (bringing Linux boxes to classrooms in the San Francisco Bay Area, or any other project like it)

This blog, and all other blogs by Larry the Free Software Guy, Larry the CrunchBang Guy and Larry Cafiero, are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND license. In short, this license allows others to download this work and share it with others as long as they credit me as the author, but others can’t change it in any way or use it commercially.

(Larry Cafiero is one of the founders of the Lindependence Project and develops business software at Redwood Digital Research, a consultancy that provides FOSS solutions in the small business and home office environment.)

Go ahead and read the article first. I’ll wait. It’s a very even, objective analysis of the situation — the best so far (but not as funny as this). Yet the most telling passage in Fabian’s article, in my opinion, comes toward the end. In the final paragraph, Fab writes:

“Essentially, Canonical will have to raise over a million dollars a day to make their funding goal and people might be reluctant to give money to a for-profit company that has so far always given the impression that it is well off enough financially to bring about the Linux desktop — later TV, then phone — revolution on its own. The fact that the person doing the asking in the campaign video is estimated to have a net worth exceeding half a billion dollars might be another factor detracting possible backers.”

Reluctant? Oh, you bet. The only way Ubuntu is getting money from me is if a member of the Ubuntu Apocalypse robs me at gunpoint. But before we go into why it’s a bad idea to publicly fund a moderately large company’s research and development effort while they hide behind an Indiegogo campaign, let’s make a list of more worthy projects to donate to:

Reglue (especially Reglue, which is creating a new generation of FOSS users as you read this sentence)

Partimus (bringing Linux boxes to classrooms in the San Francisco Bay Area, or any other project like it)

An Indiegogo campaign by a large company like Canonical — certainly not what the founders of Indiegogo had in mind when they started their project — produces an astronomical number of subtexts. Some that immediately come to mind might be:

Is Canonical going broke? I’m not sure what kind of message an Indiegogo campaign sends to Canonical’s commercial customers. Imagine the conversation in some board rooms (or at least in some managers’ offices): “Canonical is asking the public for money. Are you sure we shouldn’t have gone with Red Hat or Novell instead?” Or . . .

Shuttleworth is closing the checkbook: The Mark may not want to keep spending money on the plethora of projects that seem to cross Ubuntu’s radar seemingly on a whim — and not to stray from the subject, but how is Ubuntu TV working out so far for everyone? Saving his Krugerrands is completely understandable for Shuttleworth. Orbiting earth is a lot more fun than having to deal with questions like this. Or . . .

Canonical thinks we’re smarter than venture capitalists: I’m flattered, but nothing could be further from the truth, at least where I’m concerned (some of you might be, though). If VCs are keeping this at arm’s length, or further, what do they know that I don’t? I mean, look at the players on the field: Android, Firefox OS, BlackBerry OS, iOS and that other one from Redmond that no one but Nokia seems to want — is there something I’m missing? Or . . .

It’s yet another Canonical marketing ploy — duh: We’ll touch on this a little later, but there’s really a win-win scenario to this whole exercise, regardless of the outcome. Canonical excels at marketing its operating system in the same way SCO excels at litigation. But again, we’ll touch on this later.

As the clock ticks down for the next 30 days, let’s see one month hence if one of the following happens:

The FOSS community and others pony up $32 million: OK, let’s work under this assumption. Thirty days from now, Canonical come up with the funds, and now it’s time to produce. Is Canonical really up to it (*cough* Ubuntu TV *cough*)? Incidentally, let me be clear about this: If they do succeed in raising this amount of money from the wider FOSS community and others, and we actually see a Ubuntu/Android phone as planned, I’ll be the first to congratulate them when we see the finished product. Heck, I’ll even watch it on Ubuntu TV. Oh, wait. Or . . .

It’s a campaign built to fail: An interesting theory raised by others, and one where Canonical doesn’t lose out if the campaign fails and $32 million isn’t raised. Here’s why: If they dont get the $32 million, nobody’s money is lost (that’s the way this Indiegogo campaign is set up — folks will get their money back), but the magic here is that even in failure, Canonical has some nice on-the-record, put-your-month-where-your-mouth-is pre-orders for the phone that they can follow up on when the real phones come out from an OEM partner. Assuming that’s part of the plan, but while you’re reading this, somewhere at Canonical . . . .

Victory laps are being taken in the marketing department: Win or lose, now or a month from now, the marketing folks are already doing high-fives and taking victory laps around the office. Their job is done — the word is out, people are talking about it, for better or worse, and of course the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

Regardless of each scenario, Canonical once again shows its true disingenuous nature as it relates to the wider FOSS community; a community that Canonical mistakenly thinks it speaks for and, worse, thinks is at its beck and call. By the time this is posted, they will have raised about $1 million — congratulations on that, folks — but there are very good reasons, perhaps 32 million of them, why you should consider donating to other projects instead.

This blog, and all other blogs by Larry the Free Software Guy, Larry the CrunchBang Guy and Larry Cafiero, are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND license. In short, this license allows others to download this work and share it with others as long as they credit me as the author, but others can’t change it in any way or use it commercially.

(Larry Cafiero is one of the founders of the Lindependence Project and develops business software at Redwood Digital Research, a consultancy that provides FOSS solutions in the small business and home office environment.)